(04-08-2014 03:20 PM)Hilltop 75 Wrote: If I am a AAC school I dont allow uconn to affiliate their non- football sports with the big east and leave just football in the AAC.
The "theory" goes from the Delaware message board and some chatter with UMass fans is this:
UConn, UMass, UC, Temple, Delaware, Buffalo, Navy, Army, Charlotte, and a couple others form a new FBS football-only conference (Atlantic 10 Football, or Big East 10, or Yankee Conference FBS or some name) and then "affiliate" their basketball and all there other sports with the Big East and Atlantic 10.
UConn, Cincinnati - Big East
UMass, Temple, Buffalo, Delaware, Charlotte - Atlantic 10
Navy, Army - Patriot
Not sure how the new CFP contract plays into it or if they need some sort of NCAA waiver and if they could get bowl-ties and such, but this is what is being worked on.
The rest of the AAC would form a new South West conference and the G5 would go into hyper-drive re-organization between the AAC, CUSA, Sun Belt, etc.... some CUSA teams would go to the MWC, some would form new Southwest conference, some east coast AAC (ECU), CUSA, Sun Belt maybe a MAC team would form a new South East conference, etc..
Not sure if it can get off the ground though. It would make a mess of the entire G5 part of FBS and let more FCS teams in.
This may be what Forbes is referring to in the article with "affiliation" and new geography based conferences.
In this scenario the TV partner would have to be NBC Sports and NBC Regional (Comcast) who already cover the area and need college sports content. They bid on a HUGE AAC TV package and missed out, so they want the content just got outbid and are sitting needing some.